Man of The Future

By Sergey Lazarev

What will happen to us in the next fifteen to twenty years? What are we able to change and what do we have no control over? Will we be able to accept our new future?  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sergey Lazarev
• Release date: Jun 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9788409629114

Book preview

Introduction. What Will a Person of the Future Be?

Early one morning, a man went into his field. He walked through it and carefully looked at the ground. He scooped up a handful of soil and rubbed it between his palms. He looked at the sky and at the trees beyond the field. He listened to the birds singing. In nature, everything is interconnected not only in the present, but also in the future. Are the frosts going to be severe this season? Has spring settled in well enough for planting seeds? The man recalled omens that were known to his father and grandfather before him. Omens are signs that connect the present and the future. There are certain days when the connection between the past and the future is especially strong. If on a particular day the weather is cold and gloomy, then the following spring might be as well. A mystical connection between past and future events definitely exists. For a human being this connection is destiny, or karma. The concept of karma can hold many lives, it shows how a person’s thoughts and emotions correlate to his health and destiny, not only in the present, but also in the lives which follow.

In the Old Testament we are introduced to the idea of a connection between a parent’s behavior and their children’s destiny, revealed in allegorical form. The sin of the parents, or their improper behavior, is visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation (Exodus 20:5). This tells us that the universe exists in unity; that it is holographic not only in space but also in time. So if the future is inextricably linked to the present, then once we become detached from our shallow perception of the present we are able to foresee the future.

Let’s start with a basic understanding of the law of cause and effect. A person sows seeds and hopes to harvest a crop in autumn. However, if the seeds turn out to be rotten, there will be nothing to harvest later on. The person may diligently till the land and water it regularly, but the seeds will not sprout. Later, in autumn he will suffer, and during winter he will starve. If the man survives until the next spring he will borrow new seeds from somebody, but this time he will examine the seeds very carefully, as this present moment will determine his future.

Lets say that another man, the first man’s neighbor, did not store food before the winter. He ate hearty meals, had fun, made merry and used up all his grain. His neighbors, knowing his character, will not lend him seeds. He is also capable of plowing and watering his field, but he has no seeds and harvesting a crop will be impossible for him this year.

Our behavior and attitude toward the world define what kind of crop we will harvest in the future. Any smart landowner, in order to not only survive but also prosper, must know the laws by which to influence and control the future through the present moment. The best seeds should be stored until spring. Seeds should not be damp and must be kept in a dry place. They should be planted, using omens, at the right time. The soil must be prepared, plowed and fertilized. Seeds must be planted at the right depth and at a correct interval from one another. We are now talking about the basic laws of cause and effect. The more clearly we see the connection between the past and the future, the more fully and precisely we can influence the present, and survive and evolve in the distant future.

Here is another story. Once, this same man planted his best seeds, having plowed his field, and did all of this with care and diligence. Still, a large part of the crop died for unexplainable reasons. The few bits that he was able to gather helped him survive during the winter. However, if not for the reserves he had saved earlier, his family might have died. The next year, he takes care of his future crop with more even greater diligence. The weather is favorable, and the crop turns out beautifully. However, when only a few weeks remain before harvest, the sky becomes covered in clouds, lighting flashes, and thunder rumbles. Heavy hail sweeps across his field, and the crop is destroyed. Again, what the landowner is able to gather is barely enough to survive.

However, it is necessary for him to live, to take care of his close ones, to save at least a few seeds for the upcoming year. And so next spring, the man once again walks out onto his field. He has borrowed some seeds to sow, and must have a nice crop come autumn or his family might not survive. A week remains before planting season, he has to pull his strength together, gather his sons for help, and begin determining the future through the present moment.

On the next morning the farmer gets out of bed, and suddenly his body is pierced by severe pain. He realizes that he is sick and will not be able to help his family. But that is not all – both of his sons are sick as well.

The man lies down on his bed and looks up at the ceiling. His future has collapsed; all of his efforts where in vain. At first he had some misfortunes in his life, and then real tragedies began. Now, they are not only around him but also inside of him. Suddenly, it dawns on him that his illnesses and misfortunes are also a harvest. Yes, it is possible to control the future by changing the outer world: selecting the best seeds, choosing the finest terrain, cultivating the land. However, it turns out that this is not what is most important. It turns out that our inner state is much more significant for our future, and the most important seeds are in our soul. The way our soul is, so will be our destiny. If the man’s neighbor has a deformed soul, he will drink and revel away his harvest. Even if he comes to his senses, and, following the example of others, plants seeds and takes care of his field, his crop will die anyway.

The landowner stays in bed for one day and then another. He stops thinking about material things and his daily bread. His vague hypothesis, that his soul is related his destiny, grows clearer. The man looks around and realizes that he has begun to perceive the world differently. Beside him, he suddenly notices a Bible which he had overlooked before. With trembling hands, he takes the Bible, opens it at random and begins to read:

"If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments so as to carry them out, then I shall give you rains in their season, so that the land will yield its produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit.

Indeed, your threshing will last for you until grape gathering, and grape gathering will last until sowing time. You will thus eat your food to the full and live securely in your land.

I shall also grant peace in the land, so that you may lie down with no one making you tremble. I shall also eliminate harmful beasts from the land, and no sword will pass through your land" (Lev. 26:3-6).

Suddenly, the ill, decrepit man has an epiphany. He had constantly badmouthed and judged his good-for-nothing neighbor. He was always displeased with himself and his destiny, believing that his harvest was not large enough. He resented people who acted badly. Instead of sincerely telling them what he thought, and keeping them from improper behavior, he had become judgmental and angry.

The farmer puts the Bible aside and becomes lost in thought. Inside, he feels himself beginning to change. Once again, the man opens the Bible at random and begins to read. And incredulous, with tears in his eyes, reads:

Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another… Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning. Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind… Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself (Lev. 26:11, 13-14, 17-18).

It turns out that the laws of spiritual connection are no less important than the laws of connection in the physical world. It turns out that the spiritual and physical are closely interrelated. The physical can influence the spiritual and can shape it. The spiritual can affect the physical and shape it. However, the spiritual is more important, and the physical is but an extension of the spiritual, an instrument in it’s development.

Once again, the plowman looks around and notices with surprise that the world has become beautiful. He understands that he loves his wife, although before he had only reproached her and demanded obedience. He realizes how much he loves his children, whom he hadn’t noticed before. All of a sudden, it dawns on him that he has begun thinking of his good-for-nothing neighbor as a silly child, neither judging him nor spoiling him with constant assistance. It is necessary to help not his body, but his soul first. So, the best way to help another person is by teaching them. In order to help the soul, the physical body should be at times indulged and at times restrained.

So that night, the man goes to sleep happy even though he has no future. He will not be able to plant seeds for the new crop, and he is unlikely to recover from his illness. But now, his daily bread is no longer the measure of his happiness. Now, he realizes how everyday worries about his material wellbeing had concealed his soul. Only now does he understand how unhappy he had been the past few years.

His soul had stopped singing, and the world had lost the refinement and subtleness of its colors. He had constantly convinced himself that a barn full of grain was the the best reason for happiness. Now, sick and dying, the plowman realizes that his soul had also reaped a harvest, but that in the past few years this harvest had been made up of indifference, resentment and greed.

When the soul suffers, there is a simple and dependable way to lessen its pain: by shifting one’s attention to material things, convincing oneself that the main reason for happiness is money, material possessions, and sexual pleasure. If we forget about the soul, we stop noticing the soul’s pain.

Sick and dying, the plowman remembers an old saying, The gravest losses are those that we don’t notice. He now understands that the most important happiness is the happiness of the soul. Despite the hopelessness of his situation, he goes to sleep happy. He sleeps calmly and peacefully that night, and the next morning, waking up, he notices with surprise that he feels much worse. The whole day, he can barely breathe because of acute, paralyzing pain. At the same time, however, something has changed. His misfortunes and losses, and even physical pain, no longer evoke feelings of despair, irritation, and discontent with his destiny. The pain makes him kinder and more forgiving. The pain forces him to forget about the physical body and turn to his soul.

While the body needs daily bread for its survival and salvation, the soul needs love. These seeds, bestowed by the Creator, are always pure and saving. The more the man suffered, the more love he felt towards God. The man was sick for a few more days, but began to feel better not only in his soul, but also physically. With surprise he noticed that his sons had also recovered, and realized that his wrong attitude towards the world had not only been destroying him, but also his own children. A week later, he went into his field once again and planted seeds together with his sons. Later, there were ill-timed frosts, and rains fell at the wrong moment, but regardless, the harvest turned out bigger and finer than the previous one, the crops were beautiful, there was not a single rotten seed.

Let’s put this story aside, and return to today. Every spring, people continue sowing seeds in soil. Humankind has had success in things that need to be done in order to reap rich harvests. Every day we sow seeds of our destiny in our soul. I used to take great interest in books that spoke about people of the future. Now, many are curious about what people of the future will be like. But I have a different question, will there be a person of the future? Any person is a part of his society, and so in order for there to be a person of the future, our modern civilization must survive at the very least.

Three and a half thousand years ago, Jews began to meticulously follow the Ten Commandments given by God. They tried not to steal and plunder, not to worship money and sexual pleasure. They did not eat pork because this meat was considered impure, and was therefore harmful to the soul. If one of them had tried to visualize the kinds of people that would live one and a half thousand years later in the free Israeli nation, then, perhaps, a contemporary of Moses would have imagined them as angels without sin. However, if we open the New Testament, we read about Christ casting demons out of a man and transferring them into a herd of swine. By the way, the pigs in that herd numbered more than 2000. Even according to our current standards, the herd was not small. This means that inwardly, people had already stopped following God’s Commandments, and that this had begun to show outwardly through a disregard of the main Commandments. There was a serious crisis of belief in God, and Judaism as a whole. If a contemporary of Moses had tried to visualize what a person might be like in three and a half thousand years, he would have probably lacked imagination. However, let’s suppose that miraculously, just for a moment, our ancestor could see the future. What would he have thought seeing the homosexual parades in modern Europe? Alternatively, what would he have thought if he saw the exuberant porn culture and persistent violence on today’s television? Most likely, he would have thought he had gone insane.

These people worship vices, he would have said. They take pleasure in their own sinfulness and put it on display. Even their art doesn’t purify the soul, but rather contaminates and damages it. These people have invented mechanisms and devices that have begun consuming them. It would be interesting to know what the prophet Daniel would have said about modern man. In order to speak about a person of the future, it is necessary to see this future. Who, if not the prophets, can speak about what a person of the future will be like?

There is an incredible foresight of the future through dream analysis as described in the Old Testament. The ruler of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, was very prosperous in his kingdom, and that prosperity obstructed his vision of subtle connections. He ordered the casting of a golden idol of huge proportions, and those who refused to worship this idol, he killed. He did everything he pleased, and nobody could oppose him. However, misfortune had already settled in his soul, and he began to see strange dreams from which we was unable to recover. These dreams predicted his future: the fall of the empire, the death of his children, and his own insanity. When the prophet Daniel interpreted these dreams for him, the king fell to his knees before him. However, habits cultivated over decades are very difficult to change instantaneously. When several people refused to bow to the golden idol, believing in One God, he ordered them thrown in the fire. The flames of the fire were so strong that they killed the servants who pushed the transgressors into the fire.

But these three men,Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, fell into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire still tied up. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astounded and stood up in haste; he said to his high officials: Behold I see four men loose, and walking in the midst of the fire, and there is no hurt in them, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God (Daniel 3:23-24).

The astonished king pardoned the men and showered them with favors.

However, just because a person recognizes a miracle, this doesn’t mean that he has changed. In order for land to bear a good harvest, it is necessary to meticulously care for it. In order for the soul to bear a healthy harvest, we must care for it even more meticulously. The Bible depicts an incredible scene describing how Nebuchadnezzar’s sins were passed onto his son, Balthazar, who inherited the kingdom. At the exact moment when Balthazar was throwing his greatest feast for thousands of his nobles, when the table was loaded with golden and silver vessels full of various provisions, just at this moment the king received testimony of his oncoming death.

While they drank and honored their golden and silver, copper and steel, wooden and stone gods, in the air near a lamp there appeared a human hand, and inscribed on the wall the following words: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN (Daniel 5: 25). The astonished and frightened ruler called for the prophet Daniel, who explained the meaning of the words:

God has numbered your kingdom’s days and brought it to an end. You are weighed on the balances and found to be lacking. Your kingdom is divided and given over to the Medes and Persians (Daniel 5: 26-28).

The ruler generously rewarded Daniel, sensing that he had told the truth and accurately foretold the future. On the same night, Balthazar, the Chaldean king, was slain.

While trying to envision a person of the future, we should first understand what he should not be like. We should imagine what society of the future should not be like; explore the mechanism of the fall of civilizations, understanding the connection between a person’s soul and his destiny. It is necessary to outline the main dangers that can cross out the future of not only a single person, but all mankind. We must ask ourselves not what a person of the future might be like, but rather what he needs to be like in order to survive. Our harvest will depend on the kind of seeds we select, how we store them, and the soil in which we plant them. In order to envision what a person of the future will be like, we must look around at each other. We must understand what kind of people we need to be today in order to have a future tomorrow.

Chapter 1. The Kingdom of Heaven

In order to understand life, we need to first study the phenomenon of consciousness. Life and consciousness are inextricably linked to one other. When trying to understand consciousness we face a paradox. Any sensible person is aware that consciousness depends on social environment, that is, on purely physical factors. Not a single Mowgli has ever learned to speak. If in his first three years a child doesn’t actively communicate with other people, he will not grow up to be a person. I remember an article that stated some fascinating facts. In Western Siberia hunters came across a child among a pack of wolves. They surrounded the pack, attempting to take the child. The wolves did not run away. Instead, they tried to protect the boy to the bitter end; all the wolves were killed. The little boy behaved completely like a wolf; he snarled and tried to bite the hunters. Unbelievably, even his bone structure had changed; he had begun to look like a wolf.

It appears that our genotype is not as stable as we had assumed. Earlier, scientists had believed that DNA is active only during fetal development. It has now been discovered that our core principal information actively interacts with the outer world throughout our entire life. Europeans who live in Asia begin to look like Asians. Spouses living in mutual harmony begin to resemble each other. The conclusion is clear: consciousness is formed by material factors.

In Russia, there were occasions when babies in orphanages did not receive the affection, emotional warmth, and interaction they needed during the first three years of their lives and became mentally retarded. Time had slipped away, and the physiological changes had become irreversible.

However, there is another side to this paradox. There is a large collection of facts in the world which prove the existence of consciousness after the death of the physical body. All religions recognize the existence of the soul, which continues to live after the death of the body. Science asserts that consciousness is a function of the physical body, the product of highly organized matter; the brain. Religion insists that the soul lives much longer than the body, and influences the physical body to a greater extent than scientists assume. It is possible to reconcile these seemingly incompatible contradictions if we concede that there are different forms of consciousness.

A tree grows out of a seed, and one can safely say that the seed is primary in relation to the tree. However, the seed comes from the fruit of a previous tree, and we can state with the same certainty that this tree is primary in relation to the seed. Again we face the same question: what is primary – consciousness or matter? This question can be answered if we agree that matter and consciousness are manifestations of the same substance.

By the way, the age old riddle of what came first, the chicken or the egg, has recently been solved. The conclusion made by geneticists was surprising. It turned out that the egg came before the chicken. The proof is very elegant: geneticists determined that the genotype of a living being doesn’t change fundamentally during its lifespan. Superficial changes can occur, but the underlying structure remains unchanged. A new life form could only originate from an egg, so a chicken had to come from an egg laid by another living being. This fact makes us reevaluate the process of evolution.

Let’s touch upon one of the most sensitive topics, the evolution of man. Before Darwin, the entire world was believed to have been created by God. The idea that living beings could change in future generations was inconceivable. Darwin was able connect isolated observations into a single system, and this system undeniably stated the following: if a type of living being is placed in new conditions, then its next generation will begin to change, and in time a new type of living being might appear. Darwin’s conclusion is quite logical: the reason for the appearance of new life forms isn’t God, but rather changes in the physical environment.

Modern scientific studies conclusively prove Darwin’s